The director of health policy at the Independent Women’s Forum wants to see a more competitive health care system with more diverse options for consumers. | Courtesy of Shutterstock

UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer, has
quit the Illinois Obamacare exchange, a move that will leave consumers in its
wake searching among fewer policy choices, while seeing higher costs and less
competition from other insurers.

Beginning this fall, UnitedHealthcare will no longer sell
Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans on the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, to consumers
in Illinois as the company scales back operations to a handful of states.

“We’ve heard from a lot of major insurers that they’re
struggling with the exchanges under the (ACA),” Manning
said. “They’re struggling because the
pool of customers is more expensive than what they initially expected.”

In fact, a report from Blue Cross Blue Shield earlier
this year showed that medical claims for this pool of customers was 22 percent more
expensive than for people who had employer-sponsored insurance, she noted.

“And if it’s not affordable and it’s not financially
viable for insurance companies to continue to participate in the exchanges, then
they are going to have to find other options,” Manning
said. “For UnitedHealthcare, that means
exiting most of the exchanges. For some other insurance companies, we’re beginning
to see rate increases, so that means higher premiums for consumers.”

Additionally, major insurance companies across the
country are requesting to merge with other insurers, further emptying the
pool of insurers and deflating marketplace competition.

“Overall, this trend represents fewer options and higher
prices for consumers who have to seek coverage in the ACA exchanges,” Manning said.

She suggested that the nation needs to go back to square
one in terms of insurance reforms and allow people to buy policies that are
very diverse.

“People of different ages and people with a different
health history will have a lot of different needs and a lot of different
comfort levels in terms of the financial risk that they’re willing to bear, and
that should be reflected in the type of insurance policies that are available
for people to buy,” Manning
said. “Our goal should not be a one-size-fits-all insurance
policy available for people in the exchanges, but rather a lot of different
options.”

Manning believes insurers would be happy to offer those different options,
as well as more diverse plans.

“If we go back to a system where the insurance companies
can offer a wide diversity of plans, then I think individual consumers and
patients would be able to choose plans that best suit their needs,” she said.

Politically, Manning said she understands why people
are concerned about the future of the issue.

“I think people are suffering from reform fatigue,” Manning
said. “We just
passed the (ACA) in 2010, and then major elements of it took place in 2014. The
question on a lot of people’s minds is: ‘Where do we go from here?’”

Consumers and patients want to hear
more about the issue, she said, because they are not happy with the way things have been going
under the ACA. But they also weren't thrilled about the system in place before the
ACA because the country still had a high number of people without any form of insurance, Manning said.

“I hope that, in the future, we can continue to talk more
about what we really need to be doing and what the positive steps are that we
can take to make our health care system more competitive with more diverse
options for consumers,” she said.